User talk:Johann31

Welcome!
Hello, Johann31, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful: Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome!
 * Introduction to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

November 2013
Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=580285113 your edit] to Karstadt (Bremen) may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 ""s. If you have, don't worry: just [ edit the page] again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=User:A930913/BBpreload&editintro=User:A930913/BBeditintro&minor=&title=User_talk:A930913&preloadtitle=BracketBot%20–%20&section=new my operator's talk page].
 * List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 10:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Denkmalpflege Bremen) which lists and describes Bremen's monuments, describes the building http://194.95.254.61/cgi-

Bremen translations
I was rather surprised to see you had not commented on my latest comments on the Bremen translations which I left on my talk page but that is probably because you are not "watching" the page.

If you are not happy about the amount of editing I have been doing on some of your articles, please let me know. I don't want to have any conflict of interest with the partnership between Godewind and you on the QR Bremen assignment. On the other hand, I do not want to have sole responsibility for cleaning up all the new articles and additions. This should be a cooperative effort.--Ipigott (talk) 21:32, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

@ipigott: the reason why i did not reply immediately is because I wanted to clear the situation with godewind and give you a joint reply thereafter. He has so far not replied to my last message. But I wish to tell you already now that we are both very, very happy about the assistance and advice given by you, please continue to give us your backing! In my opinion (without wanting to prejudice godewind's remarks) I believe that the split-up of responsibilities between the three of us is quite efficient: I do the translations, godewind tries to do the formatting for the English Wikipedia (I shy away from this part of the job because I can never remember all the formatting rules and instructions). By your efforts, the articles become truly "readable"! An example of "formatting": It was, for instance, a surprise for me to find out that October 6th, 1944 has to be replaced, in accordance with the EN-rules, by 6 October 1944 (in my private opinion, such formatting rules are unnatural). For similar reasons, I passed on your comments about Handy (mobile phone) - use to godewind: I do not intend to become familiar with "sophisticated" handy use. In general, there is a big difference between translating a German article on one side and in making it readable to English speaking persons on the other side. Therefore, I shall never critizise your effort in making my texts readable and I shall always expect that there will be quite a lot of valuable editing on your side. Greetings, --Johann31 (talk) 11:13, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm glad you have been looking at my edits as they should assist you in learning some of the tricks of the trade. As for the dates, you have to choose between American and British English. Given the spelling (e.g. colour not color) and word usage in your translations, I assumed you had opted for British English where the date sequences are indeed along the lines of 6 October 1944 while the American would be October 6, 1944. If you are based in or near Bremen yourself, I think it would be useful if you could read through my edits. The German text is sometimes ambiguous and I am not always sure I have chosen the right meaning. I am also a bit confused about the use of German vs. English names for some of the buildings. In most cases, I have tried to include redirects for both, whatever the title of the article in question. Once I get feedback from Godewind too, I'll try to rally interest from some of the other editors on the EN wiki who have a working knowledge of German.--Ipigott (talk) 11:39, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * (1)I definitely prefer British English having lived in India for 9 years and in Great Britain for 5 years.
 * (2)So far, I analysed your edits for "Schuetting": as I already said, they are definitely improvements. In some cases, you added ideas of you own in order to make the wording more readable, e.g. "offering them protection and warmth in winter time." The German text does not talk about winter time. In my role as translator, I normally desist from adding such ideas even though I agree that they render the text much more readable. „first coffee house in the German speaking countries“ changes the meaning somehow but the change is not significant: While I am saying that there are some German speaking countries, you are implying that there is a definite No. of German speaking countries. Another example: "from 1951 onwards, the chamber of commerce moved": "From 1951, the chamber of commerce moved into the ground floor." If I had decided to eliminate the word "onwards", I would have used "In 1951" instead of "from 1951". Because they did not move from 1951, but the movement took place in 1951. But these remarks of mine are not really significant. I had already agreed before that your wording is definitely an improvement.
 * (3)your confusion about German vs. English names for roads, places and buildings is shared by me. While I am trying to give the original name in German versus the translation of the name, I am never really sure whether I should say Marktplatz (market place) oder Market Place (Marktplatz). Or whether I should desist altogether from adding such translations to the original German name.
 * (4)the idea to exchange ideas about these matters is attractive to me, so please carry on! --Johann31 (talk) 13:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for all your comments. Ad 2) On Scotting, the German text says "Im norwegischen Bergen bezeichnet Scotting ein Haus der Kaufleute, das im Winter Schutz und Wärme gewährt" - so there is a reference to winter. Likewise, I think when the Germans use the expression "im deutschsprachigen Raum" they mean "in the German-speaking countries". The English do not usually talk about the "German-language area". Interestingly, the first Viennese coffee house opened only in 1685. I've changed "from" to "in" (my mistake).

On the German names, I moved Balge (Arm der Weser) to Balge (river) in accordance with EN Wikipedia practice. I am not happy with Haus der Stadtsparkasse (Bremen). I think it would be more usual to call it Stadtsparkasse Building (Bremen) or perhaps even better Bremen Stadtsparkasse Building. For the time being, I've left it as it is. As for Marktplatz, in most cases I have translated it as Market Square.

As I have pointed out to Godewind, in the English Wikipedia it is extremely important to include inline references for all important items of information throughout the article. If it is indeed the case that in most of these articles, the information is taken from the descriptions in the Denkmalschutz database, then the reference(s) to that source must be repeated as necessary. Likewise for information from books and other publications. As many of the books cited in the articles are not available on the web, then someone should get them from the library and verify the source information, page numbers, etc., as a basis on which to add all the necessary references to the English translations. In similar projects, local library and museum staff have been able to participate in writing and referencing the articles but this does not seem to be part of your project. Perhaps you should discuss these possibilities.--Ipigott (talk) 08:26, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I forgot to add that I think I have now completed work on all your translations. I don't know what the remaining priorities are but perhaps it would also be useful to ensure the other EN articles (the ones you have not translated) are up to standard too and contain all pertinent information from the DE Wiki and from the Denkmalschutz descriptions.--Ipigott (talk) 08:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * @ipigott: Thank you for your comments to which I agree whole-heartedly. I also agree that "all the necessary references" to the English translations will have to be furnished but this will definitely not be part of my job because I only agreed to do the translations. At the moment, godewind does the work of providing references and I hope that he will continue to do so. At present, because of Christmas preparations and so on, nobody seems to be 100 per cent active. Godewind and I shall problably meet again on January 30th because the December Wikipedia meeting is cancelled due to the holidays. Wishing you a Merry Christmas, I am, --Johann31 (talk) 17:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


 * If you are interested, I have now created articles on Wilhelm Wagenfeld House and on Weserburg. I might well add a few more over the next couple of weeks. I was disappointed to see, however, that the number of QR smart phone accesses to the articles has been so low. By contrast, general Wikipedia access for the EN Wikipedia has been higher than I would have expected. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance. All the very best for Christmas and the New Year to you too.--Ipigott (talk) 18:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

QR Bremen list
Hello Johann31. I was surprised to see your name on the list against Haus Heineken after finding a stub by user Victuallers which I was about to expand. Then I looked at the history and discovered that on 4 January you had inserted your name against several other articles although you had not worked on them. Does this mean you have "reserved" them? If so, I won't do any more work on Heineken House or on any of the others with your name until you have posted your translations. All the best for 2014. --Ipigott (talk) 16:14, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello @Ipigott, nice to hear again from you again! I am happy to seize the opportunity of wishing you a happy and prosperous new year! I am grievous that I seem to somehow have entered into your territory. Checking the matter, I found that I had reserved the lemma "Heineken House" for my translation on January 4th. Godewind had instructed me to put my name into the column "bearbeitet von" of those lemmas which I intended to work on lateron which I did. It was realised by the two of us that this would take quite some time but he said at that time that there were not too many competitors. Since the situation seems to have changed, I shall be almost too happy to remove my name from those lemmas which somebody else intends to work on. The translation of "Heineken House" is ready and has been sent by me to Godewind who intends to fill in the references and so on. I agree that it is unpleasant and unnecessary if several helpers work at the same time on lemmas without knowing of each other; therefore we must improve our coordination process. --Johann31 (talk) 06:59, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for responding so quickly. I am sorry to hear there has been some duplication of effort with Heineken House. If we are to avoid this in the future, I would suggest you start by translating the leads to the articles you intend to develop and post them on the main page with Godewind's help. It would be a great pity if you went to the trouble of translating a long article only to find that it had already been developed by someone else. As for my own work, rather than simply translating from the German Wikipedia, I try to work directly from original sources when I can find them. That explains why there are sometimes considerable differences between my English articles and the German equivalents. I look forward to seeing the expanded version of Heineken House. Keep up the good work. -Ipigott (talk) 08:38, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, Ipigott, that duplication of this nature and the resulting frustration has to be avoided in future. Originally, Godewind had encouraged me to put my name into the "bearbeitet von"- column as often as possible even though I had warned him that it might take until summer 2014 before I could have completed all these translations. But in the meantime, the situation has changed because there are several persons who intend to participate and I do not wish to compete with them. Therefore, I removed my name from most of the objects; the only one which is still to be completed is Heineken House - I delivered my translation to Godewind and he will add the references.
 * Ref. "working from original sources instead of just translating" is done by me only in such cases where I am definitely interested in the subject, ready to face the task of inspecting original sources and judging the correctness of the existing information. If such a case exists, I may well take 3 months before such a job is completed by me. An example: When I did the article "de:Paul Jacobs", I started immediately after New Year's day 2012 to collect the evidence but it took more than 2 months before I had collected all the essentials. I even read "Prädestination und Verantwortlichkeit bei Calvin", the 1937 doctor thesis of Jacobs, written at the age of 29 years, with large passages in Latin. In that case, my motivation was that Jacobs was the one who introduced me deeply into the Christian faith when I was 13 years old - I had more or less forgotten all about him until I suddenly remembered him on New Years's Day 2012. If I act only as translator, I do not have to worry about the correctness of the sources. If (by coincidence but without really looking for them) I find mistakes or errors, I usually indicate them in blue paint with the introduction "Anmerkungen des Übersetzers" and leave it to the person who is in charge of the job to act; in this case, Godewind. --Johann31 (talk) 09:46, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I thought you did a very good job on the Jacobs article. That was one of the reasons I thought you would be able to introduce inline references on the QR Bremen articles. I seldom edit articles unless I am interested in the subject matter and I always look for authentic sources. I often work from books but I seldom write articles about Germany and have few German reference books so I have to rely on what I can find on the web. Anyway, I've been finding the Bremen articles more and more interesting and am getting to know my way around the town and its history. I seen from Godewind's translation list that there is plently more to be written about Bremen. There must be about 200 more topics there, not to mention all the red links on architects and so on which need to be covered in the QR articles. I see, by the way, that some of the other members of the de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Bremen have also been contributing to the EN Wikipedia: User:Fmrauch, User:Hawei, User:Quarz, User:Roland Kutzki and User:XenonX3. Maybe some of them could be encouraged to participate in the QR Bremen project. XenonX3 in particular looks as if he is well placed to be of assistance.--Ipigott (talk) 15:14, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

@ipigott: godewind has put my translation - unchanged - into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Johann31/translation and told me that you and I should agree what will happen next: are you ready to add the references and to process the page into its final shape?--Johann31 (talk) 12:24, 13 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I've looked through your translation. You seem to have done a pretty good job with the long text. I am not very happy about adding references from books I am unable to consult. (They are not available on the internet.) As Godewind wrote the German article himself, he should be able to add all the references correctly with page numbers, etc. I know that some editors are happy to rely on the original article without checking things out but as so many passages have been referenced to the three works in question, then I really think it is important to have page numbers. Once the references and wikilinks have been added, I will gladly look it through and try to incorporate it in the existing Heineken House article.--Ipigott (talk) 14:20, 13 January 2014 (UTC)


 * P.S. I could always go through your translation now for proofing but it might be better to wait for the refs. Just let me know.--Ipigott (talk) 14:25, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Heineken House
Oh dear it seems I may have trod on your toes. Im not preciouus about my article. Feel free to chop it about Victuallers (talk) 14:52, 16 January 2014 (UTC)


 * What are we going to do with your translation? As far as I can see, it has not been formatted or referenced. It would be a pity not to include it after you've spent so much time and trouble on it. And it contains a lot of interesting information. Can't you sort it our with Godewind?--Ipigott (talk) 15:06, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * yes, Godewind is working on it but it takes a lot of time to compare and check all the references --Johann31 (talk) 05:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)